The Schouten Family: My latest projects :)

I’ve been working hard the last few days cutting and sanding away, trying to build Alexa a doll house like I had when I was little. :) Here’s a few pictures of the project so far:

Now I’ve just got to find the time to prime and paint it (at Alexa’s request) and then I’m going to “lay” some carpet in the bedrooms and living room and some tile flooring (all leftovers from our house) in the kitchen. :) After that this project should be complete (although I think I’m still going to attempt to make some chairs for the kitchen table when the weather gets a little warmer again.)

I must have spring fever or something because nothing in my house is suitable for me -- I want to revamp or clean or re-organize everything! If I was pregnant and in my 8th month I’d say I was nesting but that’s CERTAINLY not the case! I really am not sure what’s gotten into me (nor is Micah) but so far I’ve been: cooking and baking a lot each week (its always a surprise in our house if we eat more home-made meals than frozen foods, sandwiches, or cheap fast food). I’ve bug-bombed, vacuumed every square inch, purged, and organized the “office” room (the old front porch of the house that we don’t heat or cool but use sort of as an office and sort of as a storage dumping grounds for all things we don’t know where to put.) I’ve emptied and painted the basement bedroom (hoping to one day turn that into Alexa’s room complete with bunk beds & all). Moved the king guest bed into the family room in the basement and cleaned & rearranged that room. I’ve rearranged and cleaned the laundry room, revamped an old cabinet down there, and cleaned the spare storage closet down there (creepy basement under-the-stairs closet filled with spider webs and things).

If Micah would let me (or if I could convince him) I’d have gutted our main floor bedroom & scrapped the popcorn ceiling off as well as ripped apart the plaster walls and tried to start the drywall process in that room. I’m hoping we can figure out if we’ll ever make major improvements to our house (like build my dream master bedroom on) or not -- if not I’d like a better closet built in our main floor room & then I’d like to convert the main floor bathroom’s tub into a full shower system. Otherwise I have MAJOR ideas for what I could do to the main floor -- but that would require a bit of an open mind and MUCH bigger budget from Micah! :) haha - a girl can dream right? The way I look at it - I’m happy & content with what we have - but if there’s room for improvement why not? After all - I’d much rather improve this house than EVER move again & have to have another lengthy mortgage!

My other projects have been trying my hand at sewing again - I made myself (with my mom’s teaching help) a dress - although I won’t wear it until/if my exercise helps me trim some problem areas - but I still consider the dress itself a successful attempt! (below is a picture of the dress) I’ve also been trimming and re-sewing curtains for the “office” area room windows because the ones that were in there were way too long for the windows. Then I hope to make a few dresses for Alexa - everything in her closet is starting to be too short for her & I’m not sure I’m in the mood to shop in the big girls area all the time for her - she’s still my little baby right??? I’d like to find a pattern and make Logan a suit too but I’m not sure if I’m ambitious enough to try it yet! :)